Free Going Back by Gary McKay

FOREWORD
    Going back, gaining closure
    Dare it be written that never, in the field of bringing closure to the personal equation of human conflict, has so much been done for so many by just one: namely Gary McKay as author of this book. With apologies to Winston Churchill, I have amended his famous Battle of Britain declaration to salute a most vital effect of this book, which provides many examples of the bittersweet experience of veterans returning to the very ground where they lost their legs or their mates or both.
    The Viet Nam War was, in many ways, a young person’s war on all sides, in part because the National Service call-up in Australia reduced the average age of soldiers in combat to around twenty-one. In turn this has meant these veterans, post the Viet Nam War, have some fifty years or more to live, and so a long time to dwell on their memories of Viet Nam and all the agonies encountered there.
    Matching this in recent times is a huge upswing in the affordability of overseas travel: as Viet Nam opened up its tourist industry many veterans became curious to return and, after a taste of modern Viet Nam and after overcoming any personal demons, they have kept on returning.
    However, not all have had the time, desire or wherewithal to visit; for those veterans, this book offers the next best thing: a set of epic accounts of veterans ‘going back’ to read and be enriched by. Equally, those about to go back can prepare a whole lot better for that return visit by absorbing the good, the bad and the ugly that may be encountered.
    Above all else, this book will help many to gain an enhanced sense of closure, something that was never going to be easy given the way the war ended for the allies. The defeat was not so much at the hands of the North Vietnamese but at the hands of the Pentagon and various US Defense Secretaries and other strategists, who made big mistakes and allowed the war to continue even after they had recognised they were on the wrong track.
    As Gary McKay writes, no Australian who served in Viet Nam has anything to be ashamed of, but the losses remain a big cross to bear, including those veterans who made it safely back but then died prematurely due to post traumatic stress disorder and other ills.
    The Vietnamese also sustained huge losses in this curious war and will write the war their way. But bit by bit the rhetoric moves towards the immortal words of Kemal Atatürk, then addressed to the mothers of Anzac soldiers, embracing and saluting their contribution at Gallipoli: ‘After having lost their lives on this land, they have become our sons as well.’
    Gaining closure will be greatly helped by this book, a long overdue and necessary postscript to the Viet Nam War (or American War or, more accurately, the Pentagon War).
    Tim Fischer
Ex 1 RAR and former Deputy Prime Minister

PREFACE
    As a young man I served in South Viet Nam in 1971 as a rifle platoon commander with the 4th Battalion of the Royal Australian Regiment (4 RAR). In 1993 I made my first trip back to Viet Nam because I was writing a book that was partly funded by a John Treloar Research Grant from the Australian War Memorial. I wanted to return to where I had served, fought and nearly died after being severely wounded. I saw very little of Viet Nam when I was first there at 23 years of age. All I had briefly seen was the port of Vung Tau, the 1st Australian Task Force (1 ATF) base of Nui Dat, and a very large number of trees and bushes as I patrolled through the tropical jungles of Phuoc Tuy Province.
    Indeed, the first time I saw Tan Son Nhut airport in Ho Chi Minh City was in late 1993, when 23 former members of Delta Company, 4 RAR, and a few ex-soldiers from 3 RAR and a sprinkling of wives landed for a three-week visit. It was stinking hot, extremely humid and had the rotting-vegetable smell of the tropics—just as the town of Vung Tau had smelt when I went there on a rest and convalescence (R&C) break two